I left Digital’s wedding announcement on
the table for BD to see when he got home.
I remembered that day, the last time I’d seen him.
He said, “ The next time you hear from me, it’ll probably be
getting a wedding invitation in the mail.”
“Invitation?” I’d asked, reminding him that an invite was different from an
announcement.
“Well, yeah you’re right. An announcement then,” he said. Indeed.
But I couldn’t dwell. I had my own problems.
If I’d felt trapped before, my feelings of imprisonment were
only intensified after the birth of our son. I had no idea how women did this
every day. Get up, get yourself ready, get the baby ready, prepare bottles,
pack bags, load the baby and the bags into the car (this is a feat from a
three-story walk-up, in snow), drop the baby off, go to work, work, pick the
baby up, come home feed the baby, cook, eat, put the baby to sleep, go to sleep
and do it again the next morning. I was exhausted. How grocery shopping,
laundry, bank runs or anything else got done in between time with only one
person on the parenting clock was beyond me. I needed BD. But the price of
having him around was ever increasing. Our son added a whole new element of
control to our relationship.
I’d thought having the baby around would mellow him out. You
can’t be so rigid and calculated when you may be pooped on any minute. You have
to smile when this tiny little person makes animal sounds in his sleep, and be
moved as he falls asleep in your arms.
The entrance of our son had the opposite effect on BD, with
his behavior only becoming more erratic. He would sit in front of the
television each night, attempting to indoctrinate our child with rhetoric,
listening to an old Anthony Hilder vs. Khalid Muhammad debate on DVD (Youtube
it) over and over again. It hurt my heart to the core.
After taking maternity leave and returning back to work, I
asked him to bring the baby to my job so my coworkers could see him. They’d
been really good to us at a baby shower my department threw before I left, so I
thought it only appropriate. I really should have rethought it.
BD brought our little man in and the crowd quickly gathered,
oohing and ahhing the way people do around babies. But when the VP of the
company, the man who’d hired me reached out his hand to touch the baby’s foot,
BD recoiled like a snake, snatching the baby away.
“Please don’t touch him,” he
said.
It was not softened with a nervous laugh, or even a half
smile. He was unapologetic in his tone and even in his gaze. It really broke
the mood and I was mortified. I’ve heard of overprotective parents not wanting
their children touched. I get it about germs and all that. But the baby was
wearing footies. The man had reached out to wiggle his little toes. People tend
to do that to babies.
It was the end of the day, so I bid my coworkers good bye,
grabbed my bag and boarded the elevator with BD, where no sooner did the doors
close --
“Why did you do that?” I
snapped in a heated whisper.
“I don’t want that white man touching my child.”
That was the first incident. Here’s another:
We’re on the bus, I’m sitting with the baby on my lap and BD
is sitting next to me. A white lady directly across from me starts making faces
with the baby, talking to him in exaggerated baby tones. Babies tend to have
this effect on strangers in public places, so I picked up his little hand and
waved at the lady across the aisle from us. BD immediately got out of his seat
and kneeled in the walkway blocking the view between the baby and the lady,
grabbing his little hand to hold his attention and whispering, “No son, that’s
the devil.”Yes, for real. This really happened! I wanted to cry ... from embarrassment, from anger, from sadness for my child
and a deep sense of helplessness for him as well.
And these are just a couple of many. It got really crazy around
that house for a while. And what added to the insanity was BD’s absolute
resolve.
He was a teacher. He looked good, tall, handsome, well
groomed always in a shirt and tie --Every day with the shirt and tie
-- Well educated, well-spoken and even capable of charm when necessary. It
would be difficult for anyone to believe he was certified. And I would have no
more difficult time convincing a person than months later when we’d both find
ourselves in a psychologist’s office, each fighting for our own parental
fitness over the other.
Before then though, our tenure as cohabitants would
culminate with flashing lights and sirens.
Originally posted on
March 11, 2008
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